This once-in-a-lifetime concert event took place Saturday, January 12, 2019 at the Bridgestone Arena in Nashville, TN. This historic event honored living legend Willie Nelson and featured his greatest hits performed by today’s biggest superstars. Willie: Life & Songs Of An American Outlaw featured star-studded performances by Willie Nelson, Alison Krauss, The Avett Brothers, Bobby Bare, Chris Stapleton, Dave Matthews, Emmylou Harris, Eric Church, George Strait, Jack Johnson, Jamey Johnson, Jason Isbell, Jimmy Buffett, John Mellencamp, Kris Kristofferson, Lee Ann Womack, Lukas Nelson, Lyle Lovett, Margo Price, Micah Nelson, Nathaniel Rateliff, Norah Jones and The Little Willies, Ray Benson, Rodney Crowell, Sheryl Crow, Steve Earle, Sturgill Simpson, Susan Tedeschi & Derek Trucks, and Vince Gill. This major event was filmed and recorded for a major broadcast special slated to air on A&E Network in 2019.
This one-night-only concert event taping brought together fans, friends and music icons to celebrate Kenny Rogers’ final farewell to Nashville. All In For The Gambler featured performances by Dolly Parton, Alison Krauss, Chris Stapleton, Don Henley, Elle King, Idina Menzel, Jamey Johnson, Lady A, Lionel Richie, Little Big Town, Kris Kristofferson, Reba McEntire, The Flaming Lips, The Judds, Wynonna, The Oak Ridge Boys, and Kenny Rogers along with many other special guests.
Countless country artists have borrowed sounds and production tricks from rock music. Brantley Gilbert takes it further, drawing on heavy metal’s menacing guitar riffs, snarling, low-slung vocal delivery, and theatrical sense of danger to amplify the personal and spiritual stakes of his songs. On his fifth album, Fire & Brimstone, he once again plays the part of a small-town ruffian who chases wild times but wrestles with his conscience and surrenders to his tender side.
Accomplice Two shares the same exuberance, diversity, and sense of adventure as the first album, with a great range of artists. This album features rock legends Michael McDonald, Jorma Kaukonen, and Little Feat; bluegrass superstars such as Billy Strings, The Del McCoury Band, Sam Bush, Jerry Douglas, Sierra Hull, and David Grisman; country icons such as Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Jamey Johnson, and Raul Malo; and guitar heavyweights like Yasmin Williams, Larry Campbell, and Richard Smith.
Willie Nelson has been a prolific singer and recording artist since the 1970s, but the songwriter who penned hits for Ray Price, Patsy Cline, Billy Walker, and Johnny Cash, among others, hasn't issued an album of predominantly original material since 1996. Band of Brothers ends the drought. Its 14 selections include nine new songs by Nelson (with producer Buddy Cannon) and a handful of fine covers. Opener "Bring It On" is a honky tonk waltz that offers wisdom by someone who has lived through plenty as he looks eternity squarely in the eye. He is in excellent voice as Mickey Raphael's harmonica moans to underscore his lyric. Nelson delivers his first guitar solo on Trigger (his nylon-stringed instrument). His playing, with its unique phrasing, has always been underrated and here it evokes the blues. His love songs have always been highlights in his catalog. "I Thought I Left You" is in 4/4, with a slow processional pace adorned with slippery steel and piano. The lost romance portrayed in the waltz "Send Me a Picture" is another clear standout; a sighing pedal steel and Raphael's mid-register wail echo every sung line.
Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard first teamed up on record for Pancho & Lefty in 1983, a record released some 20 years after both singers began their careers. Back then, they were both hovering around 50, already considered old guys, but Django and Jimmie arrives 32 years after that record, when there's no question that the pair are old-timers. Appropriately enough, mortality is on their minds throughout Django and Jimmie, a record whose very title is taken from Willie and Merle's childhood idols. It's a song that seems like a confession, as does the casual admission that they didn't think they'd "Live This Long," but neither Nelson nor Haggard wrote this, nor the title track or the album's first single, the near-novelty "It's All Going to Pot."